The law should be applied without fear or favour, but judges who have daughters tend to be more sympathetic to feminist causes, according to research.

A study of 2,600 judgments confirmed that judges were more likely to rule in a “feminist” direction in the case of employment disputes, sex discrimination and on abortion rights if they had daughters.

Maya Sen, who led the study at Harvard University, said: “People with different life experiences often, and understandably, have different opinions about important issues.” Race, gender and political allegiance have all been shown to potentially influence judgments. “Having daughters is just one